


Later, Later, Later

by echomoon



Category: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: Accidental friendship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Injuries, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-10-27 01:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10798560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echomoon/pseuds/echomoon
Summary: During the break between returning from Brakebills South and the next semester, Penny keeps appearing in Quentin's room in the middle of the night. Neither one of them know why, until Penny gets stabbed by the Virgo Blade.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So theres a few timeline changes here:  
> -Alice avoids Q after the first hookup like, completely  
> \- theres a larger gap between their return from BBS and the start of hte next semester/study groups  
> -everything in general is a bit more spaced out.  
> \- the whole thing with victoria and fillory hasn't happened yet, but penny did meet his mentor, get the tattoo, and get it removed by mayakovsky
> 
> other timeline changes will become more apparent throughout the fic, also theres a huge plot point that i didnt tag for because it would spoil the end of this chapter, but its not like violent or bad or anything.
> 
> this was supposed to be a '5 times quentin got truthied and flirted with penny' fic but my head is a piece of shit that cant write anything right

Quentin is wallowing alone in his room and it’s entirely Todd’s fault. He and Eliot were stuck in some ridiculous competition to see who could throw a better party, and so none of the participants would lie for their friend, everyone was given a ‘small’ amount of truth serum. ‘Small’. ‘Wouldn't last more than 20 minutes’. Two hours later and Quentin's isolated himself in his room waiting for it, and the alcohol, to wear off because anytime someone asked a question near him he was compelled to respond and the now drunk partygoers - especially Margo - had taken full advantage of that.

He’d given up on studying for the night and was instead curled up reading Fillory and Further. Not too different from most nights, save the utter cascade of person information he had shared and would probably never live down. Fucking Todd.

He was only a few chapters in when the air of his room shifted like it was full of pressure and suddenly a hooded man was standing at the end of the bed. Shocked, he scrambles backwards and propels himself off the bed with a thump. And maybe a high pitched yelp, not that he would like to admit that to anyone. Laughter rings out. Terrified, he peers over the edge of the bed to assess the danger to find that the intruder is Penny, laughing his ass off.

“Shit, man, chill out.” Penny says between laughs.

Quentin scowls at him.“Fuck off, you can't just show up and expect me to be fine. I haven't exactly had the best of luck with people suddenly showing up out of the blue.”

Penny looks a bit chagrined - everyone who had been there that day still remembered the Beast’s appearance - as his laughter trailed off, but not for long.

“Anyway, its - why are you in my room?”

“I was… looking for something. Don’t know why I ended up here. I’ll get out of your hair, loser.” Penny turns to the door and Quentin’s truthied and still partially drunk mind started supplying images of things he’d rather have Penny do to his hair.

_Shit. Don't think about that. Don't think about Penny's hands in your hair. Or him pulling it as you go down on him. DON'T THINK ABOUT PENNY’S DICK. QUENTIN STOP. Fuck. Shit he's looking at me._

Penny opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, Quentin basically screeches “PLEASE LEAVE NOW SO I CAN WALLOW, BYE.” And slinks back down to try and hide himself under the bed. Not that it works, since he’s so lanky, but it's the effort that counts. He’s never really dealt with embarrassment well.

Quentin hears the door open and footsteps moving away from his room. He decides to stay under the bed for another ten minutes just to be safe. He never wants to see Penny's face again.

But apparently a side effect of Todd’s utterly botched truth serum that he was given too high a dose of is memory loss, because he remembers basically none of the night before when he wakes up the next day. Just the vague memory of Margo quizzing him with a cruelly amused expression and Penny showing up, scaring the shit out of him, and leaving. No memory of Penny’s weirdly accepting state of the thoughts he also had no memory of broadcasting.

At least no one remembers whatever truths he had apparently shared the night before.

 

* * *

 

A week and another competition party later - this time with no truth serum, but thanks anyway Todd - and Quentin excuses himself to go ‘study’, aka decompress from being around that many people for so long, only to once again find an intruder in his room; Penny, leafing through one of his books - one of his _first edition Fillory books that he doesn’t let anyone but Julia touch, holy shit._

“Hey!” He shouts, storming up to the man, “What the hell are you doing! Put that down!”

He whirls Penny around with no resistance, which is weird considering how much stronger the dude is than him, and sees his weirdly despondent face. He pulls the book out of Penny’s hands and inspects it for damage, but it looks like he had actually just been…. reading it, not trying to damage it in any way. Penny just blinks at him.

Quentin feels _supremely_ awkward seeing Penny like this, which isn’t fair because Penny’s the one who came into Quentin’s room in the first place. He shakes his head and asks, “Penny, are you… okay?”

“Fine.” Penny says gruffly after a second.

“...Okay… so then _why_ are you in my room?”

“Can I borrow that?” Penny redirects, pointing to the book.

“Huh? Why? I thought this was ‘nerd boy dragon porn shit’.” Quentin says, as harshly as he can while as confused as he is.

“Changed my mind. Can I borrow it or not?”

_Ah, there's a Penny more like his usual self_ , Quentin thinks, eyeing him suspiciously.

“W-h-y” Quentin asks, dragging the word out.

“No reason.” Penny stares at him, as if daring him to challenge him. Quentin takes the dare.

“Yes reason. Why.”

“God, you're so fucking annoying.” Penny sighs, leaning his head back as if staring at the ceiling will make Quentin leave him alone. “I need a distraction, okay? And considering how much of the plot I pick up from your shitty ass thoughts I might as well give it a try. Happy?”

“Fine. But not this copy.” Q says, moving beside Penny to put it back on the shelf, taking out a worn paperback in its place. It's the copy he usually reads, with pages highlighted and written on and dog-eared, but it's also the only other copy he has with him here.

“If anything happens to this,” he says as he hands the book to Penny, “ I will do everything in my power to hurt you.” He doesn't completely trust Penny, but he’s always here for converting someone into a Fillory fan. Besides, he can always ask Alice to help him get it back - or get revenge.

“Fine,” Penny rolls his eyes but doesn’t give a snappy comeback like he normally would. He looks at Quentin with a weird, unidentifiable expression for a second, and then reaches out and tucks a lock of Q’s hair behind his ear. Quentin flinches, expecting the man to hit him or something, not do _that_. A tingle runs through his scalp, but before he can respond in any way, Penny travels out of the room.

“What the actual fuck,” Quentin says to the empty room, dumbfounded, then tries to shake it off and actually start studying.

He ends up thinking about the moment all night, and then some.

* * *

Three days later, Quentin and Alice are studying in the main room of the cottage. They're sitting cross legged, knees touching, hands intermingled as Alice tries to fix Quentin’s fingers into the proper Popper position. He’s about to suggest they just give up on this exercise for now, when someone calls his name from the top of the stairs. Usually, this sort of interruption is Eliot, trying to convince him to help with some inane scheme or do some drink testing, but when he looks up its Penny, assholish smirk and all, leaning over the rail at the top of the stairs. His stupid smirk turns into a look of almost shame when Q looks up at him.

“What do you want?” Q calls back, annoyed at Penny for interrupting him and Alice - this had been the most she had touched him since their ill fated hookup at Brakebills South.

“Yeah, uh… about your book…” Penny trails off, rubbing the back of his neck, and Quentin automatically assumes the worst. He jumps up and practically runs up the stairs.

“ _What did you do to it._ ” Quentin seethes, prepping his hands to cast whatever spell his angry minds threw at him first.

Penny’s shameful face turned into a shit eating grin.

“Nothing, man, I'm just fucking with you.” He laughs, producing the book from behind his back. “Can I borrow the next one?”

Quentin stops short. “You're such a dick.”

“What's your point,” Penny shrugs, and makes his way to Quentin's room. Q scrambles up the rest of the stairs to make sure he gets there before Penny fucks up anything in his room.

They both miss the curious look on Alice’s face as she watches the exchange.

* * *

That night, Quentin pulls out the returned book to check it for damage. It's overall in the same condition, save for new writing on some of the pages, hesitantly written in pencil, replying to come of the comments Quentin himself had written onto the pages and leaving new comments and questions on other pages.

Quentin hesitates for a second before pulling out a notebook and writing down answers and replies to what Penny had written.

He falls asleep wondering what Penny would write in the book he currently had.

* * *

He slips the note onto Pennys desk as he walks past during their next shared class, but doesn’t look back in fear of a bad reaction, so he misses the fond look that graces Penny’s face for a split second.

* * *

Two nights later Quentin wakes up in the middle of the night because of a loud crash. A chair is broken on the floor, a profusely swearing Penny on top of it. Q blinks blearily at him.

“...You know.. you don’t have to return the book.. right as you finish it?” Quentin yawns, sitting up. “You can wait until….”

He trails off because Penny is staring at him with an expression of pure rage.

“What, Penny.” Quentin says flatly. He doesn't know what he did to piss Penny off this badly but he doesn't currently have the energy to care.

“You aren’t Kady.” Penny half slurs, staggering upwards.

_Shit, is Penny drunk?_

“....No.” Quentin says slowly. “Kady left the school, remember? She doesn’t live here anymore.”

Penny’s face twists into something ugly.

“Why won’t this fucking spell TAKE ME TO HER!” Penny roars, spinning out and punching a hole in Quentin’s wall.

“Jesus, Penny, calm down, okay?” Quentin, scared and filled with adrenaline, jumps out of bed and rushes to pull Penny’s arms down, despite his general weakness in comparison. For some reason his first instinct is to try and sooth the other man, which is strange considering his normal reaction to this kind of situation would be ‘avoid and run’.

He holds Pennys wrists together, which seems to calm him slightly, because his face crumples into an expression more distressed than angry. Quentin wonders briefly if doing that would would on Penny even if he's not drunk. He guides Penny over to the bed, and gestures for him to sit down. Penny sits and stares at his hands. Quentin isn't really sure how to help with the whole thing and decides the best he can do at the moment is to cast a sleeping spell on Penny. He hopes that Penny just needs to sleep the anger off. And that the man isn't still pissed off at Quentin for whatever reason his is now once he does wake up.

“I just want to find her.” Penny mumbles right before Q finishes casting. He passes out a second later.

Quentin just stares at him, feeling the adrenaline leave his body now that the situation has wound down. It leaves him feeling more exhausted than he had been before. He considers for a second, and then pushes Penny over to one side of the bed and crawls in next to him. He's too tired to care that it might bother Penny when he wakes up. This _is_ his bed, after all.

* * *

 

He wakes up companionless, the chair and hole in the wall fixed.

* * *

Penny seems to be ashamed of that night, because he straight up avoids Quentin for the next week. Quentin is surprised to admit that the avoidance hurts more than he would have expected it to - he and Penny had had a pretty rough start but the past few weeks they had been getting along well enough that Quentin was almost willing to call him a friend.

Still, they have a few classes together and Quentin at the very least wants his book back, so he slips out of the classroom under the pretense of using the bathroom - it was independent study time so he wouldn't miss anything anyway - and spends the time lurking next to the doorway waiting to ambush Penny and trying very hard to shield his thoughts as to not give himself away. The best trick he has is still Eliot's advice of ‘repeat something _really annoying_ in your head’. He focuses on a non Taylor Swift pop song.

Penny is one of the first people out of the classroom. He spots Quentin a split second before Q grabs his arm, tugging him a little ways down the hall. Penny has a semi panicked expression that he smooths out before they come to a stop.

“You wanna stop touching me?” Penny says cooly.

“You wanna stop _avoiding_ me?” Quentin replies.

“Avoid- Quentin, we are _not_ friends. I owe you jack shit, least of all my company.” He jerks his arm free.

“You at _least_ owe me my book back. And no, you can't borrow the next one. I don't lend my things to assholes." Quentin crosses his arms, trying to hide that he's actually hurt by what Penny is saying.

Penny takes a step closer, looming over Quentin in an attempt to intimidate him. The man only succeeds in giving Q a tingling feeling at the base of his neck.

“I was an asshole when you leant it to me in the first place, dipshit.”

“Penny, you - ugh, look, just give me my book back, I don't care what the fuck you do after that.” Q says crossly.

“Fine.” Penny scowls. He stomps away.

Quentin watches him go, blinking fast because of suddenly watery eyes.

* * *

He ends up drunkenly whining about the situation to Eliot at the next physical cottage party. Eliot, who is probably about three times drunker than him and yet somehow still as poisedly put together as usual, looks at him in a way that makes him squirm and then says, in the manner of someone who solves all of his problems this way, “You should just fuck him.”

Quentin sputters. “ Eliot! No! Why - no!”

Eliot shrugs blithely. “It would get him out of your system.”

“That - that's not the point of this! I'm not going to fuck Penny!”

“Who’s fucking Penny?” Margo asks, appearing out of nowhere and effectively scaring the shit out of Quentin, who clutches his mostly empty glass close to his chest as if that will in someway stop way his heart nearly jumped out of it.

“Quentin.” “No one!” the two men say at the same time.

“I think he’d be a good lay.” Margo says sagely. “Have you seen that body? Of course you have, he practically walks around naked.”

“No one is sleeping with Penny, oh my god.” Quentin stands up. “I'm leaving, you guys are useless.”

Eliot and Margo continue to yell dirty comments about Penny at him as he stalks away.

“Useless!” he yells back at them.

* * *

Quentin is up late studying that night when Penny suddenly blinks into his room.

“God DAMMIT.” Penny swears, and disappears as fast as he appeared.

“What?” Quentin asks the empty space.

* * *

Dean Fogg assigns them into study groups at the start of the second semester and Quentin tries to convince himself that he's switching with Gretchen to get closer to Alice. Definitely not for Penny, not even a little bit.

Which leads to the three of them sitting outside in the wooded area near one of the main buildings, encircled by streamers and fairy lights and surrounded with magical paraphernalia. Alice and Penny have been having a heated discussion about another class while setting things up, sounded a million times smarter than Quentin himself could ever hope to. He leafs through the exercise they’re supposed to be doing.

“I don't understand.” he says.

“The idea is you look at the list of ingredients and try to figure out what the spell does.” Alice says, handing him a fern.

“...Yeah.” he says, flipping the page and trying very hard not to look at Alice’s boobs as she leans over him.

“Maybe we should move on, if we wait for the simpleton we'll be here all night.” Penny says, dismissively pointing his pencil at Quentin.

“Okay, if you _understand_ , then _explain it_.” Quentin says, irritated.

Penny glares at him. “It’s a healing spell, I’ve seen the welwitsch-whatever in the infirmary.”

“Actually, trick question.” Alice interjects, in full lecture mode. “It’s a _welwitschia mirabilis_ , the leaves are used for both healing spells and and for doing exotic curses.

“I thought it was a fern.” Quentin says, feeling even more stupid.

“Which is why I brought flashcards!” Alice says brightly.

“Oh, of course you did.” Penny mocks.

Jesus, why does Penny have to be such a _dick_ about _everything_ , Quentin thinks, and then thanks Alice.

“Could you not - could you - for one minute, could you not give her googly eyes.” Penny spits out.

“Oh god.” Alice mutters, turning around as if she can ignore the entire situation.

“I don’t know what you, um, implying or, um, inferring.” Quentin stammers, as if he hadn't intentionally been thinking about Alice the way he used to before this whole situation with Penny had started as a way to keep Penny out of his freaking head, which clearly didn't work. And okay, maybe he _was_ giving her googly eyes. He really did like her! Just, like, not as much as usual, for some reason.

Penny starts to rant about having seen the two of them and Brakebills South and Quentin is just completely mortified. He tries not to look at Alice, but that problem is solved when she excuses herself and practically runs away.

“Thank you for that -” Quentin sighs and is interrupted by Penny, who won’t look up from his book without a glare.

“Ain’t my fault or my problem.”

“- But I’ve been trying to get her to stop avoiding me after that and you’ve brought us back to fucking square one.” Quentin finishes.

“For the record, you _do_ see what you’re doing wrong, right?”

“I’m not trying to _pursue_ her, I’m trying to be friends with her again.”

“Right, that's definitely what’s going through your mind. Constantly. What happened to strengthening your shields, nimrod?”

_At least I'm not thinking about_ you, Quentin thinks, feeling tired of the whole situation. “Lets just. Go back to studying.”

* * *

It’s dark by the time they finish setting up the next spell. Quentin is just standing there doing nothing while Penny finishes the last of it up. Nothing is happening.

“... I checked the position of Cephus three times, I did the whole invocation, this stupid plant should be seven feet tall by now.” Penny says.

Quentin just looks at him.

“What.”

“....What happened to you and Kady?” Quentin asks, remembering what Penny had said the night he drunkenly appeared in Quentin’s room - as opposed the other nights, when he wasn’t drunk.... “You guys were inseparable.”

“What do you care, Coldwater.”

“I just - I know you’re looking for her, okay? That’s practically the whole reason you’ve been avoiding me lately, just. Can I help?” Quentin feels like an idiot for reasons not involving the superior mental capabilities of Alice - he feels like he’s sharing something he shouldn’t be in asking to help Penny.

Penny just stares at him and Quentin gets a sinking feeling. God, Penny obviously doesn’t want his help, he already said they weren’t friends, why does Quentin even try, he’s so fucking stup-

“Fine.” Penny answers, shocking Quentin out of his decline into angst. He reaches down for his notebook, but then straightens back up. “Can I _help_ you?”

“What?” Quentin is confused.

“Not you.”

Quentin turns around. “Oh, uh, hey, Mike.”

Eliot’s new boyfriend is standing in the darkness. “Sorry. I got - I got a little turned around. Uh, could you tell me which way the cottage is?”

“Yeah, it’s like -” Quentin turns a bit to gesture and Mike rushes at him, swinging a knife.

Quentin staggers backwards quick enough to avoid it and Penny leaps at Mike, pushing him down. They struggle on the ground, penny trying to get the knife out of his hand. Penny punches him a few times and Quentin starts to prep the only battle magic he knows, but he’s too late to help; Mike knees Penny in the groin and slashes him with the knife. Quentin’s spell propels Mike away and he runs away.

It takes a split second for Quentin to realize that Penny’s been stabbed and he rushes to Penny’s side, yelling for help.

* * *

The rush to the infirmary, the conversations that follow with Dean Fogg and Eliot and Alice, are all a blur. Quentin tries to be helpful but he’s terrified.

Penny jumped in front of him. _Saved_  him. He jumped in front of a _knife-wielding lunatic_ for _Quentin_. Would he have done it for anyone? Or did he like Quentin more than he claimed to? And now he was in surgery, which his fucking life depended on.

And then Quentin finds out that they found Mike, and he and Eliot try to deal with that for the rest of the night.

And when he hears that Penny is out of surgery, still alive, he’s flooded with relief.

* * *

The news that Penny collapsed the next morning, from a curse in the wound, has Quentin rushing back to the hospital. There’s nothing they can do for now, but Quentin decides to keep him company, only partially for ulterior motives. He works up the courage to confront Penny about him having jumped in front of the knife.

Of course Penny responds with sarcasm. At least he’s partially his normal self.

Q considers asking about Kady again.

“No, Quentin. If she cared, she’d be here.”

Quentin leaves shortly after that.

* * *

He goes back to the clearing to gather up the things they had left behind, semi surprised that no other student had found fit to steal their shit. He flips through the notebook Penny had been reaching for before he got - before Mike had interrupted them, and finds a complicated looking spell. He tucks the notebook into his bag to look at later.

* * *

And then he’s called back to the infirmary because there are fucking _vines_ growing out of Penny’s wound. Quentin immediately makes the connection, but Alice announces it before he can - the vines are from the Virgo blade, from the fucking Fillory books, and he goes on a rant about the whole thing.

Weirdly enough, Penny doesn’t seem too annoyed to listen, despite the obvious pain that he’s in.

_I’m not going to lose him_ , Quentin thinks, but before he can be surprised by the thought he remembers how they cured Jane in the books and races off to make a doll of Penny.

It doesn’t work and all Quentin can feel is failure. He has to fix this. He _has_ to cure Penny.

* * *

But it takes a conversation with that specialist, Eliza, who keeps showing up and knowing more about Quentin and Fillory than she has any real right to, for Quentin to realize what is really needed to break the curse. He races back to the infirmary.

“I found a way to break the curse! Penny!” He pants, running in. Penny is asleep on the bed, so Q tries to shake him awake. “Hey, asshole, I need to know your most precious possession!”

“He’s been out of it for like, twenty minutes.” Alice says to him from her position at Penny’s bedside. Quentin is overcome by the idea that it should be _him_ sitting there, not Alice, but he’s got more important things to think about.

“Then it might be too late.” Quentin says sadly. It looks like he’ll have to find it himself. There’s no way in hell he’s letting Penny die. He turns to Alice. “Come on, we have to go to his room.”

* * *

Quentin can’t even think straight while they’re searching Penny’s room. He and Alice argue about precious things, and he kind of feels like he’s missing something in the conversation but just has to find - and there it is, a candy wrapper from Brakebills South. It has to do with Kady - of course Penny’s most precious thing has to do with Kady. A piece of paper falls out of it when he unfolds it to show Alice. She’s turned around so she doesn’t notice. He swoops down to pick it up when she turns to leave after he shows her the wrapper and stuffs it in his pocket.

They rush back to the infirmary and he solemnly hands the paper to Alice for her to burn. Everyone turns away from the burning bowl to see if the vines recede - and they do. Quentin’s heart is beating ferociously, triumphantly, but he realizes that the vines are burning away too slowly, that it’s working but it’s not complete. He slowly pulls the folded paper out of his pocket, glad that he decided to grab it, and glances as it right as he puts it into the bowl, thinking it might help, and -

Holy shit, that’s his handwriting. That’s the note he gave Penny, all those weeks ago, before Penny stopped talking to him.

Quentin slowly turns toward the bed and sees that the vines are burning away twice as fast. Everyone bursts into murmurs as Penny wakes up.

Alice grabs his hand but all he feels is paralyzed.

* * *

And then Eliza is in a coma and Mike’s completely disappeared and all Quentin can think about is staying near Penny. He spends all night in the infirmary, watching vigil in the waiting room across from Penny’s room, pretending that Penny isn’t pretending not to notice that he’s there. He hopes that he’s far enough away that Penny can’t hear his thoughts whirling around his brain like rain in a storm drain. Why was that paper one of Penny’s most precious things?

He falls asleep on the uncomfortable couch and doesn’t wake up until the next morning when Penny, who’s been discharged, shakes him awake.

“Go home, Quentin.” Penny says. He reaches out and tucks a lock of Q’s hair behind his ear. Quentin blinks drearily at him.

He’s gone before Quentin can shake the sleep off of himself enough to respond.

* * *

Alice is bleary eyed, shaking with worry, when he gets back to the cottage. She clearly slept about as well as he had. Quentin wonders how Eliot is coping when he sees the state she’s in.

Before she can say anything to him he pulls Penny’s notebook out of his bag and hold it out to her. “I don’t want to think about… any of what’s happened, right now. Can you help me figure out this spell?”

She looks at him strangely and wordlessly accepts the notebook. It takes her about five minutes of reading before she looks back up at him.

“Quentin, this is a travelling spell. You’re _nowhere_ near the skill level needed for this.” She says in a tone that’s very much trying to soften the blow of her words.

“It - it’s not mine, it’s - well, it’s Penny’s; just, what is it _for_?”

“Okay, well, this first part, here, it’s in Hungarian, and it’s a locater spell, to find your ‘heart of hearts’ - but this part - I think the first part is a partial translation because this second part is in Kven - a dialect of Finnish - and it’s saying it will find the other half of your coin, essentially. It might be two spells cobbled together? It’s a little confusing, because the first part is just saying it will locate the person you love, but the second part - well, this translation is an idiom, but it’s essentially a soulmate finding spell. Two totally different needs, when it comes to magic - I’m a little surprised at how well it’s been put together, I think it will actually work - well, for the needs of the soulmate part, anyway, if you believe in that sort of thing.” Alice glances up at him when she finishes.

Quentin isn’t really sure what sort of expression is on his face because he’s too busy trying to get his head to stop spinning. This was clearly what Penny was using to try and find Kady that night… so why did he end up in Quentin’s room? Penny must’ve made some sort of mistake. He _had_ been showing up in Quentin’s room previously, so maybe he just went there out of habit - except, why did Penny keep showing up in Quentin’s room before then in the first place? He had never really thought about it but it _really_ didn’t make all that much sense. It wasn’t like Penny to try and bond out of nowhere like that, especially with someone like Quentin.

“Right. Well. I’m going to go, um. Give this back to Penny.” he says, taking the notebook back from Alice. He turns to leave, and then has another thought. “Actually, wait. Do you know of any more, um. ‘Soulmate’ finding spells?”

* * *

It turns out there’s a whole shelf of them in the library. Alice picks out a few that are the least hokey and gives them to him with a pinched look on her face.

It takes Quentin 3 days before he’s willing to cast any of them, and another two to actually manage to get it right.

He casts them again and again and again until he’s at the brink of exhaustion but it just keeps showing him the same person:

Penny.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was supposed to be the last chapter but my brain is a piece of shit so you get another cliffhanger. im gonan do my best to finish the next bit soon and have it be the last oh my god

Quentin is incredibly glad that tonight is another party at the physical cottage because he needs to get very, very, _very_ drunk. He heads straight for the bar and snatches a drink out of Todd’s hands, ignoring his indignant cries. He downs it, considers the glass for a moment, then hands it back to Todd and snags a bottle off the table next. He swigs from it as he meanders across the cottage for a quiet spot. Maybe he should head back to his room? Oh hey, there’s Eliot.

And there indeed is Eliot, lounging on one of the couches, exhibiting for the world his usually kingly grace. But Quentin can tell there’s something wrong with him by the way he’s staring into space instead of bartending, or enthralling a group of, well, groupies with a tale of some escapade, or flirting with the flavor of the night. And Quentin realizes that maybe he’s been neglecting Eliot, his first friend here, the first person he really _trusted_ here. He takes another swig of his drink, deciding that right now Eliot is more important than any of this Penny nonsense, and sits down next to him.

“Hello Quentin.” Eliot says dreamily, still staring into space.

“How are you doing, El?”

“Oh, you know,” Eliot waves his hands in the air. “Wracked with depression and guilt, as per usual. Ready to embrace the neverending void. I let him go, you know.”

Eliot says the last bit in a very matter of fact tone.

“Who?” Quentin asks.

“Mike. I could have stopped him, I think,” Eliot faces Quentin, stares right at him but somehow right through him. He sighs, “But I didn’t. Let him walk right by.”

Quentin pulls another drink from his bottle. There’s a pit in his stomach - well, there already was one, but now its worse. Eliot squints, like he’s finally focusing on Quentin, and his face crumples, but before he lets himself show any other emotion he tilts himself into Quentin’s lap. Quentin just strokes his head.

“I want it to stop, Q.” Eliot says, his words muffled into Quentin’s lap.

“I know, El. I know.”

* * *

Quentin finishes his bottle and puts Eliot, still distraught, to bed. He wanders back downstairs to grab another bottle and then heads back to his room. The pit in is stomach is gnawing at him, his whole body feels heavy with despair. He falls back onto his bed and thinks.

_Eliot let Mike go. Mike tried to kill me - nearly killed Penny. Penny is my - no, stop thinking about Penny. Mike. Why did Mike try to kill me? Is Mike the Beast? Working for the Beast? Why does the Beast want to kill me? Why only me, when there were three other people in that ritual. Well, Kady is gone, but Alice and Penny are still here. Penny is - STOP THINKING ABOUT PENNY. If the Virgo Blade is real, is Fillory real? That makes… a lot of sense._

Quentin turns his heavy head sideways and the books on his desk across the room catch his eye.

_Don’t look at them. Don’t think about any of that. Think about Mike. No, don’t think about Mike actually. Don’t think about anything. Try to go to sleep. I’m asleep, I’m asleep, I’m -_

There’s a pressure and a man is standing in his room, his back facing Quentin.

_Fuck, its the Beast, here to kill me again. I wonder where the moths are. I should get up and run. Get up and run, Quentin. Get up and -_

The man turns around and kneels at the side of the bed.

_Oh, it’s Penny. I should say hello. No, I shouldn’t say hello. Don’t think about Penny, Quentin. Don’t think about Penny and don’t think about those spells and don’t think about him almost dying for you and don’t think about those spells._

“Quentin, how much have you had to drink?” Penny says, right in his face. Penny’s face looks weird, looks not angry the way it has been lately. And before. Penny’s face is angry a lot. Quentin decides that he likes Penny’s face like this. Though Penny’s face is always nice. Quentin decides to tell Penny that, because it has nothing to do with those spells he doesn’t want to think about.

“Youvga agoo’ faesssss.” Quentin says. Hm, that didn’t come out right. He closes his eyes to think about what went wrong there. His head is heavy. Maybe he should go to sleep? Oh, something is moving him? He opens his eyes and sees Penny, pulling him more onto the bed.

_Don’t think about Penny, he tells himself, don’t think about Penny and don’t think about those spells and don’t think about soulmates._

Quentin turns to stare back at the ceiling. The world feels wavy. He stops being moved. He looks to the side where the touches were coming from, wondering why it stopped. Oh, there’s Penny. Weird. Doesn’t he know that Quentin’s not supposed to think about Penny?

“Quentin, _what spells are you talking about_.” says a voice. It sounds so far away, like Quentin’s ears are muffled. It sounds like it’s in a hurry, and he doesn’t want to make it mad.

 _Those spells_ , he tries to say. He lifts his arm weakly to point at the desk. Did he manage to say it? Maybe he should go to sleep. Sleep is good, and he won’t have to think about not thinking about Penny. Thinking is so very hard, he thinks. There’s a weird sound coming from somewhere. He decides it isn’t very important and rolls onto his side. When did his legs get on the bed? He thinks he hears something talking to him but he’s so tired.

If he dreams, he doesn’t remember it.

* * *

In the morning - well, afternoon - he’s woken up by a stream of sunlight hitting his face. Everything hurts. He spends the rest of the day recovering, so it takes until the evening for him to notice that his stack of Alice-approved books from the library is gone. Why the fuck did someone take those? He doesn’t want to even _think_ about what the replacement fees are going to be.

Quentin panics for a bit before remembering that, duh, he’s a magician. There has to be some sort of finding spell he can use.

He finds them on a table in the back corner of the first floor of the cottage. Maybe he’d taken them down there last night? He decides it isn’t important - at least he found them. He makes a detour to the library to return them the next day on his way to class.

* * *

Two days later, Penny corners Quentin in the library, forcing him against a bookshelf and standing close enough to trap him there. He shoves a drawing in Quentin’s face.

“Wow, Penny, I didn’t think you liked Fillory enough to draw fanart.” Quentin deadpans.

“Are you _sure_ this is from Fillory?” Penny replies urgently, shaking the paper.

“Yes, Penny, god. It’s Ember’s seal, why are you showing me this?” Quentin’s skin is crawling with nerves and he wants to get away from Penny before he starts thinking about - no, Quentin.

“Fuck.” Penny says softly, looking down at the ground.

“Look, are we done? Can I go?” Quentin tries to wiggle his way out from between Penny and the bookshelf, but Penny holds out his arms to stop him.

“Quentin, just - I saw this in some weird dungeon while I was astral projecting - the... the Beast was there and he has some girl chained up. This fucking, symbol, crest, whatever, was on the wall.” Penny says seriously.

“...You’re saying you _astral projected_ into _Fillory_.” Quentin says slowly, scrutinizing Penny through slit eyes.

“Man, I don’t fucking know where the hell I was, just that the Beast was fucking torturing some chick and this symbol was on the goddamn wall, okay?” Penny expression of angry nonchalance wavers - Quentin can tell he’s way more shaken by the situation than he wanted to reveal.

“Fuck, okay.” Quentin says, dropping the books he hadn’t checked out yet onto the ground with a muffled slam and then grabbing Penny’s arm. Penny is startled and tries to pull away. “No, dude, look. Travel us to my room, we’ve got research to do.”

Penny obliges him.

* * *

“So that crest, it’s from a specific Fillorian castle,” Quentin starts after they materialize in his room, making his way to the bookshelf. Traveling is much less disorienting than Quentin thought it might be - for some reason he imagined it would be something like apparating, and that was always described as nausea and dizziness and all that jazz. As he reaches to pull down ‘The Flying Forest’, he says, “It was um, built by dwarves, which - well, you probably don’t care about that part - or well maybe you do but let’s focus on, um - anyway, the castle is like, _full_ of magical shit.”

“Yeah, the Beast is really fucking magical, let me pop back over there and see if he does birthday parties!” Penny spits out.

“Penny, can you just not? For a minute? I get that you’re like, traumatized, but we need to focus.” Quentin is surprised by the conviction in his voice. “Let me just. Find the passage, okay?”

Penny sits down on the bed while Quentin flicks through the pages of the book.

“Okay, here!” He turns the book at Penny, pointing at a passage. “I think the dungeon you saw is in the Castle That Isn’t There - the um, the passage just kind of gives a small history, but it’s this invisible castle, basically, full of all sorts of magical treasures - it’s not a huge plot point, they just kind of visit it shortly, but it’s the only place that would have that particular, um, crest, see, there’s the description of it towards the middle.”

Penny skims the paragraph.

“Okay,” he says, “but how does this help me from getting my face eaten by the Beast?”

“...I… honestly have no idea.” Quentin says. “We both know the Beast isn’t in the books, so I _don’t know_ why he was in Fillory.”

“Shit. So we summoned a eyeball plucking, human eating monster that is somehow from the world of a fucking kids book. How is this my life.”

“We can try and find ways to stop you from astral projecting back into there - will any of the other psychics know how to do that?”

“Ugh, I don’t know. They might, I guess.” Penny groans.

“I guess we should head over there?” Quentin offers.

The room is silent while Penny considers.

“Okay, Penny, I know this is all really serious right now but like… Penny, you were in _Fillory_. Fillory!” Quentin is scared but kind of ecstatic. Fillory!

Penny looks at him for a second and then breaks out into a grin - probably the first genuinely happy expression Quentin has ever seen on his face. “I know, right?!”

* * *

Penny gets fitted for an anti-astral projection charm and they part ways. Quentin honestly assumes, with the way things had been going lately, that that was the last he would hear from Penny for a while.

So he’s surprised when, a day later, Penny knocks on his bedroom door.

“I never gave this back.” Penny tells him as way of explanation, holding out the second Fillory book. He’s leaning on the doorframe, looking weirdly… charming.

“Oh. Thanks.” Quentin says. “Do you want the next one?”

Penny shrugs. “Might as well buff up on this shit, since it’s apparently real.”

Their hands brush together when they exchange books and Quentin almost jumps out of his skin before he realizes that it just felt… well, normal. He didn’t really know what else he expected - Penny _had_ touched him a few times before, but that was well, before the whole reveal; plus it hadn’t been skin to skin contact the way that just was. For some reason he expected something to happen. Penny claps him on the shoulder when he leaves.

Quentin decides to do more research on what exactly this whole soulmate thing is supposed to be about.

* * *

He looks through all those books again, properly this time, the next day. The first go around he had only focused on the spell - how to cast it, nothing else. This time he actually takes the time to read the absurdly dry academic part. And from what he can find, the general conclusion about soulmates isn’t the widely prevalent opinion that they’re purely romantic - the creators of the spells he used say that the soulmate are two sides of the same coin, people who are destined to influence each other. The writer continues along that vein - none of it sounds particularly romantic.

Quentin is, oddly enough, disappointed by the reveal. Not that he was expecting to get a romantic relationship out of Penny because of this. Or ever. But something in him had built up the idea that soulmate meant what it did in non-magical media - the love of your life, the one person who is exactly right for you. And maybe it was sort of right - this meant that he and Penny were always meant to have an impact on each other, but...

He shakes his head, trying to get all of the thoughts out of it. So the soulmate thing probably isn’t all that important. Time to move on. He still isn’t going to tell Penny about it, though.

* * *

A week later a breathless first year healer arrives at the physical cottage, looking for Quentin. It turns out Eliza woke up from her coma, long enough to give a message - a message for Quentin - before her still healing trauma forced them to put her in a medically induced one. She still had weeks to go before she would be anywhere near stable enough to wake up.

The message just says:

‘You’ll find what you need under the hedge’s end’

Quentin has no idea what it means, but Eliot does.

* * *

Eliot, clad in an absurdly expensive looking pajama and bathrobe set, and sunglasses, carrying a half empty bottle of red wine, guides Quentin to a hedge maze near the natural’s greenhouses, a section of campus Quentin has never really had a reason to go near as of yet.

“The hedge’s end,” Eliot drawls, “is the middle. Good luck finding it, the maze is always shifting around.”

“Eliot, really?” Quentin exclaims as Eliot walks away, annoyed. Eliot waves the bottle of wine at him as a goodbye. “Goddammit.”

He rolls up his sleeve and charges into the maze.

* * *

Two and a half hours later, he’s hopelessly lost. He’s hit so many dead ends that he doesn’t even know how to find where he entered, let alone find another exit. He should’ve brought some sort of way to mark his path, he’s such a fucking idiot.

He sits down to take a break. It’s probably getting close to dinnertime. He didn’t bring his bag with him. He’s, effectively, trapped. Quentin groans and wishes he hadn’t been such an idiot coming in here so unprepared in the first place, without even a way to send a message - if he had a piece of paper, maybe, he could charm it to go to someone at the cottage to help him get out, but he doesn’t, so that’s out. What other spells are there? There’s one to find _objects_ , but would the center of the maze count as an object? Maybe if he tried to find whatever it is Eliza thinks he needs, but he doesn’t know if _that’s_ even an object, and he thinks he might actually need to know what the item is in order for the spell to work.

Maybe if he just yells really loud someone will find him?

Wait - yelling. Well, not quite _yelling_ yelling, but mental yelling - Penny had been able to find him when he was stuck in his own head because Quentin had mentally yelled that song loud enough for him to hear, maybe it would work if he did it again?

He tries singing it in his head for a bit, shields down, but feels weird and decides to sing it out loud too. Full volume. Sure, his voice is terrible, but it’s not like he has anything better to do.

Ten iterations in and the air fizzles.

Quentin stops mid chorus, blushing a bit at the look the suddenly here Penny gives him.

“You rang?” Penny says flatly, arms crossed.

“Yes! Penny, great! I’m stuck in here, can you help me get out?” Quentin blurts, excited that it had worked and he might get free soon - mainly because he really wanted something to eat.

“Why.” Penny says in the same tone of voice. He doesn’t _quite_ look irritated with Quentin, just a little annoyed, but Q still feels a bit like he’s being a burden. Why _would_ Penny want to help him. Are they friends enough for this? Sure, Penny has helped him before, but usually in life or death situations. This didn’t really count - the only thing Quentin was in danger of was _maybe_ eventually starving to death, if enough days passed.

“You’re… the only one able to help me right now?” Quentin says awkwardly.

“I'm the only one else _here_ , not exactly a long list to be on.”

“Please?” Quentin tries. God, he feels pathetic. This was a stupid idea.

“Quentin, why are you even _in_ here? The naturals are the only ones stupid enough to wander this maze and that's because they can actually get _out_.”

Quentin explains the situation and it makes Penny look almost _thoughtful_.

“Did you try a finding spell?” Penny asks.

“It wouldn’t work, you need to know the actual object and I have no idea what Eliza is sending me to search for.”

“Hm. Go get me a twig or something, I’ll try and work out a variant.”

Quentin goes off to wrestle with the hedge, which is surprisingly difficult - the naturalists must’ve spelled it. He eventually finds a half broken branch willing to let go of its dying half and brings it back. He watches Penny work, half jealous - Quentin was only gone for around 5 minutes and Penny is already halfway through reworking the spell. Quentin just watches him work, fascinated.

He teaches Quentin the spell, adjusting his fingers manually the way Alice would when they studied together. Quentin felt a little warm and he hoped he wasn’t blushing. He pulls away from Penny slowly and casts.

Quentin swings one direction and nothing happens. He swings the other way and the end of the stick - very very faintly - starts to smolder.

“Yes!” He exclaims, holding out his hand for Penny to high-five. Penny stares for a second before lightly tapping his palm.

Good enough.

* * *

It doesn’t take them very long to wander the rest of the maze - less than an hour, Quentin guesses. They don’t really talk, just walk in silence, side by side. Its surprisingly nice. The sky has gone mostly dark, and the campus is lit up faintly. Fairy lights that were apparently hidden in the hedges light up, so they aren’t in as much darkness as Quentin was worried they would be.

There’s a little garden enclosure in the middle of the hedge maze, circular shaped with a few tiny metal tables and chairs, a stone path criss crossing through the middle in the shape of an x. Quentin goes to stand right in that middle, to test which direction he should head in and the stick bursts in the flame. He drops it in surprise.

Penny crouches down to inspect the garden path. There's a square stone in the very middle, a dark lava looking rock where the rest are a light grey granite. He pokes at the edges and it lifts up easy. Quentin crouches beside it and looks at the dirt. it just looks like regular dirt, so he digs into a bit with his hands. A few inches down is a metal box, long and thin. He pulls it out and brushes the dirt off.

It’s just a regular lockbox, but instead of a spot for a key there's a small circle with a tinier hole in it. He puts his thumb on the hole to see if pressing it does anything - which it does, just not what he was expecting; a sharp pin pops out of the hole and pricks his finger. He nearly drops the box, which emits a blue glow and then opens. It seems like Eliza had spelled it to only open with blood - his, specifically. How she got a sample of his blood for the spell, he has no idea.

Inside the box is an envelope, and inside the envelope are two things: The manuscript he had lost at the beginning of the year, and a small white button encased in a rickety wooden box.

“Shit.” Quentin says, immediately making the connection between the manuscript and the button. “Penny, we’ve got to go back to my room.”

* * *

Penny leafs through the manuscript while Quentin searches an actually published Fillory book for mention of the button, both men sitting cross legged on the bed.

“Look, here,” Quentin says, showing Penny a passage. “In the books, the kids have a button to Fillory - Penny, I think this is it!”

Penny flips open the button case and immediately makes a face. “Shit, this is soaked in travelling magic. Can you feel it?”

“No, but I trust that you can. It makes sense, this has to be the button from the books. You probably shouldn’t touch it.” Quentin adds when Penny reaches out to the open case.

“Don’t worry. Mayakovsky himself trained me; I stay put when I want to stay put. This button won’t move me anywhere, I just want a closer feel at the magic.”

Penny touches the button and disappears.

Godammit.

* * *

Quentin doesn’t immediately go into a panic - but once it hits that afternoon he’s more than worried. He’s been up all night reading the manuscript and waiting, so at this point he’s basically running on coffee. Penny has been gone for 14 hours.

Quentin has to go to class. He doesn’t _want_ to go to class, he wants to stay in his room and wait for Penny to get back. Wait. Maybe Penny already got back and Quentin stayed up worrying for no reason? Would Penny do that to him? Yeah, probably. Maybe he’ll see Penny in class - it _is_ one they share. There’s a reason to go.

Penny isn’t there. Now he definitely has a reason to worry.

Quentin pulls Alice aside when class gets out. She looks worried, but just places a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“You know Penny tends to disappear sometimes,” she says gently. “I’ll look into ways we can figure out where he is, but I think unless he’s gone a bit longer it might just be that he’s staying away on purpose.”

Quentin doesn’t know why that thought makes him so upset.

It takes two more days for anything to happen.

* * *

Quentin is dreaming. It’s not a scene sort of dream, but a hazy mix of feelings and sensations and sounds floating around a colorful cloud that occasionally flashes with visuals. He watches, detached, as someone runs down a hallway, and feels the sensation of something cold melting down his back. Then the feeling of sunny warmth, attached to the sound of laughter and glasses clinking. The sensation of hands running through his hair, as the cloud turns purple and soft and someone talks in a low voice, words unintelligible.

Then there’s Penny, shouting his name. How weirdly specific.

The clouds melt into a facsimile of the physical cottage, colorless and looking as if someone had taken a picture and then traced over it and destroyed the picture, and all that was left was the outlines of the tracing. Penny runs through the front door, looking normal. Quentin looks down at his hands and sees that he looks normal too. Strange.

“You have the weirdest fucking dreams.” Penny says to him. Strange symbols float out of his mouth and melt into the air.

“Not really something I have any control over?” Quentin says. His words come out in blobs of color. Then he realizes - that's Penny. Actual Penny. “Penny - you've been gone for three days, where are you?”

“What? I’ve only been gone for a few hours - I’m in some place called the Neitherlands, I thought it might be some Fillory shit; it’s like, fountains, and plazas up the ass - and the fountains, they all go to different worlds.”

Quentin shakes his head. “I don’t know - it sounds familiar, I can check the books when I wake up.”

“Shit, what happened to you knowing every detail of the series? I don’t know if I’ll be able to pop in here again.”

“Wha- why don’t you travel back to the Earth fountain? Why wouldn’t you be able to do this again?”

“There's like three moons here, Quentin, my internal compass is having a grand mal seizure. I’m lost.” Penny looks irritated but also somewhat panicked. “Look. I need your help.”

“Anything you need.” Quentin replies. He’s only somewhat shocked at himself for the reply.

* * *

Alice brings him to her parents house the next day, to find a magician her mother knows.

She doesn’t warn him about any part of the situation they were about to walk into.

* * *

They talk to a traveler her mother knows, which leads to:

“I’ll sleep with you, Q.”

Quentin gapes at Alice. The first thing that popped into his head was - yes, absolutely. He remembered what it was like to sleep with Alice, even if it was just as foxes - wonderful, pure need, perfect chemistry. But then a feeling of shame runs through him.

He shakes his head. “No, Alice. We can’t. You're - you're one of my best friends and, I know we've already slept together but, like you said, that was the foxes. I don't want us to avoid each other again, I don't want to fuck us up.”

Joe watches this happen impassively, and then shrugs. “I've always been a good pinch hitter.”

“Okay.” Quentin nods hesitantly. “You and me. Let's do this.”

It wasn't like it would be his first time with a guy, just the first time in a long while. And though Q felt a little apprehensive at sleeping with someone he had no real feelings for - other than a ‘I guess the dude is kind of handsome’ sort of feeling - this was for a good cause. For Penny.

* * *

The spell works perfectly, and Penny appears while Quentin is hunched over joe’s chest, the man still inside of him. Q looks over his shoulder at Penny, who’s crouched on the floor near the end of the bed.

“Welcome back!” Q says, grinning. He’s feeling a mixture of post-coital pleasure and happiness that Penny is safely back.

Penny rolls his eyes but he also looks weirdly angry. Did he _want_ to stay in the Neitherlands?

* * *

Every time Quentin feels a twinge run through his sore lower body he remembers the pleasure of last night, running a loop in his head, flashes of memory and remnant feelings. But he also feels ashamed - he was never one for one night stand situations, and even though it was sex for the purpose of spell work he still felt kind of like he had been used. The emotional fallout of post sex was something he was semi used to - though the last time, it had been muted by the animal instinct left over from being a fox and then mixed with the depressive episode triggered by Alice rejecting and avoiding him.

The problem with all of this, more than the situation itself, is that he has to sit in classes today. Classes he shares with Penny. Penny, who is sitting behind him and glaring daggers at the back of his head, strong enough that Quentin can legitimately feel it, and probably because of what's running through Quentin’s head.

You’d think the dude would be grateful that Quentin had put himself in an uncomfortable situation to save his ass, but no. He comes back and immediately turns into an angry, mopey asshole who didn't have the decency to say thank you. You know who did say thank you? The guy who turned Quentin’s body into a spell receptacle of a sex toy the night before. A pretty decent dude, for someone Quentin never wanted to interact with to any extent ever again.

Quentin looks up from the notebook he’s been boring a hole into with his eyes when he hears a door slam shut to find that no one else was in the classroom. Shit. Well, at least he didn’t have any more classes for the rest of the day. He could go back to the cottage - maybe ask Eliot if he knew of any spell or potions that would help with the soreness. He packs up his books slowly and turns.

Penny is still sitting behind him. What the fuck. Was he going to beat him up in this abandoned classroom or something? It seems like it, from the look on his face.

“Dude, I fucking saved your life, why are you so angry with me?” Quentin asks defensively. He sets his bag on his desk and crosses his arms across his chest.

Penny just glares at him. Kind of glares? Looks at him very weirdly. He sighs. “Just close your mind, Quentin. I don’t need the constant play by play of your sex life pushing itself into my head.”

“Oh, what, you're having some sort of homophobic freak out? Sorry you had to see me fuck a dude to save your goddamn life, Penny, I didn’t realize it would offend your heterosexual sensibilities. Next time I’ll leave you to rot.” Quentin spits out, rolling his eyes. Jesus, _that_ was what was bothering Penny?

“I don’t want to see you fucking _anybody_ , okay?” Penny’s moved closer.

“Penny, you were literally caught fucking Ka- your ex girlfriend in the library, and the cottage hallway, and the pool room… need I go on? You don’t get to talk to me about being seen fucking people, mr. exhibitionist.”

Why does Penny keep moving closer? He’s moved beyond punching range and in one more step would be toe to toe with Quentin. And his sort of angry looking face just looks serious, now.

“Close. Your. goddamn. Mind.” Penny growls, face looming close. Quentin tries to take a step back and just hits the desk. There’s a tingle in the back of his neck from Penny’s nearness; the air feels supercharged.

“Make me, asshole.” Quentin bites out, rolling his eyes. Penny’s eyes narrow.

Penny, quick as flash, grabs a fistful of Quentin’s hair, pulling his head into a tilt. Before Quentin can even react, Penny is bending towards him. Hesitant, Penny’s lips touch his. Quentin’s mouth opens in shock. Penny takes it as encouragement, because the kiss grows more aggressive.

It’s a good kiss, good enough for Quentin’s mind to go fuzzy. His sore body is pressed between the hard desk and Penny’s hard body. His hands flail a bit before settling on Penny’s sides, warm skin and soft fabric against his open palms.

Penny breaks for air and Quentin sags a little at the loss of contact. Penny loosens his grip on Quentin’s hair. Quentin feels like he’s stuck in a cloud. When Penny shifts again, to move closer, to kiss him again, Quentin places a hand on his chest.

“Stop, Penny, hold on.” Quentin says. His brain is barely working, he’s trying to figure out how to say what he wants to say. He’s not really sure what he’s even feeling - shock, pleasure? Why did Penny kiss him? He looks up, mouth struggling to form words, and see’s that Penny’s face has hardened - not angry, not sad, but something inbetween.

“Right. I get it.” Penny says roughly. He takes a step back and Quentin wants to yell out ‘no, you don’t’ but his mouth won’t work and he thinks his mind might be too cloudy with confusion and desire for Penny to hear it.

He watches as Penny takes a step back and disappears.

 _Fuck_.


	3. Chapter 3

Quentin, once he gets over his shock, is beyond pissed off. He manages to focus on one thing: hunting down that fucker and telling him that he likes him. Wants to date him. Whatever. The problem is, he has no idea where Penny disappeared to. And Penny will be able to hear him coming from a mile away even if he does find him.

He stops at the library for a map of the campus, for a locater spell to see if Penny even  _is_ on campus, which, nope. He considers breaking into Fogg's office to steal one of those magic tracking globes, not that he would know how to use it.

He's about to leave the library and go find Alice, or maybe Eliot, it's a mix of whoever he finds first and whoever would be least likely to make fun of him, when a book jumps off a shelf and flutters at him. When he stops to look at it, it flutters again and then lands on an empty desk, open to a page about a third of the way through.

Hoping that this isn't some weird book mating ritual that was going to get him attacked by horny books - he had seen enough of the library books fighting and fucking each other that it wouldn't surprise him, at this point - he walks over and looks at the open page.

It's one of the soulmate books, the ones Alice deemed too hokey, open to a locater spell.

* * *

 It usually takes Quentin a while to pick up a new  spell - faster than a lot of his classmates, sure, at least before he and Alice moved up a year, but still a while and with a lot of studying. Maybe it's his familiarity with other strains of soulmate spells, or his overwhelming need to find Penny, that makes him able to pick up the spell with only a few hours of work. The only problem with it was that he kept getting stopped at the wards, and ever since the incident with Julia and that other hedge, the portals everyone has used to get off campus were closed. Which meant he needed to track down Eliot and hope the other man knew where some new ones were.

* * *

 

When he finds and asks Eliot, he just gives him an amused look.

"Quentin," he drawls, "Of course I know where the portals are. Who do you take me for,  _Todd_?"

Quentin thinks he hears a muffled sound of indignity from the other side of the liquor cabinet, but with how loud the cottage is its hard to be sure.

* * *

 

Quentin's skin is buzzing with urgency by the time he steps off campus, his mind a loop of 'have to find Penny' and 'why do I fuck everything up?'. He tries to ignore the second one. Now is not the time for self loathing.

Q ends up going on a wild goose chase, heading one direction for ten minutes than the opposite the next, because as it turns out, Penny is incapable of staying in one place. Its just past sunset by the time Penny finishes hopping around, and luckily he's still within Quentin's reach - he stopped at an RV park, two towns away from campus. Not that Q figures that out until he actually gets there and the spell buzzes to let him know Penny is within reach - up until then he was going on direction alone, and sincerely hoping Penny wasn't halfway across the country, or worse, the world. Now that Quentin is within radius, he tries to quiet his mind.

And it turns out he doesn't need to, because Penny steps out of an RV at the edge of the park completely dazed, the spell spluttering out the second Quentin spots him. He approaches Penny carefully but the man is just staring at his hands blankly. Quentin is barely a yard away when he realizes that Penny is covered in blood.

"Holy shit," Quentin says, closing the gap between them in an instant. "Penny, are you hurt? What happened?"

Penny looks up with an expression thats still horror struck but also trying, and failing, to be angry.

"What the fuck, Quentin, are you stalking me now?" Penny says, like he's trying to be acidic but his voice is too tired to cooperate.

"I. I needed to find you?" Quentin fumbles out.

"Why, to reject me more?" Penny says bitterly.

"No, to tell you that I fucking like you, you dickbag. Can you let anyone else speak ever or do you just have to jump to conclusions all the time?" 

"Like me? Are we in middle school?"

"Says the guy who ran away because of a second of hesitation; who exactly is acting like the child here? Sorry for trying to find you and fix things before you disappeared for a fucking week again, I thought maybe you might be _pleased_ at something for once." Quentin is exasperated.

"Yeah, well it's kind of hard to be happy when I just watched my mentor shoot himself in the fucking face because of the goddamn Beast."

"Oh. Jesus."

There's a long silence.

"Look, can we talk about all this feelings shit later? I need to take a shower and get extremely drunk."

"Yeah." Quentin says awkwardly.

A silence, again, until Penny holds out his arm. Q just stares at it, making Penny sigh.

"Q. Come on. Fastest way to campus."

"Oh, right." Quentin says. Can he _be_ any more stupid today? He grabs Penny's arm.

They end up outside the cottage, now quiet and partyless. 

"You don't want to go to your dorm?" Quentin asks as they walk through the door.

"Fuck no, those hippies would be crawling all over me crying about  _feelings_ and  _trauma_ and whatever the shit. Besides, y'all have the biggest selection of alcohol on campus, besides the teacher's lounge, and I don't really feel like breaking in there right now."

"Fair. You can use my shower." Quentin offers.  _And room,_ he adds mentally, feeling brave.

Penny takes a second to consider.

"Thanks." he replies, with the shadow of a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. penny says yall now, i dont even care  
> 2\. chapter has been edited to reflect that pennys mentore lives in an RV, not a trailer. thanks steven.  
> 2b. the locater spell works because quentin has met his soulmate in person before. it basically finds penny based on their bond (as people, rather than like an actual soulbond?) its a varation of a finding an item you lost spell only its person. all the soulmate shit in this fic is kind of useless, it was supposed to go elsewhere direction wise and i kept getting distracted by other things. a good plot device for finding eachother tho lol.  
> 3\. theres an epilogue to be psoted tomorrow-ish  
> 4\. i typed this directly into archive, if theres errors let me know  
> 5\. sorry this took so long, depression.jpg and whatever. its done now. im never writing again (send me promtps and pairings i want ideas and my brain isnt cooperating)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey look i finally finished this fucking fic  
> plz comment if u liekd this and have left kudos before, i need validation  
> if ur reading this i love you, thank you for dealign with my shit and reading this nonsense
> 
> also once again: timeline what timeline? theres more of a gap between the beast trying to kill all the travellers and him coming after the physkids and by more of a gap i mean a lot of a gap. let my babies live, pretend its the books and they get to finish brakebills first, whatever. this is the chill timeline where shit still happens but everyone gets more time to recoup first

Penny had spent that night of drunken recovery in Quentin's bed, though this time Quentin wasn't in it - and this time, when he woke up, Penny wasn't gone. Sure, he wasn't in Quentin's room when Quentin went to check on him, but when Quentin sleepily made his way to the kitchen, he found Penny and Eliot sniping at each other. A really fucking weird sight for not-quite-awake-completely Quentin's brain to try and process.

"Oh look, sleeping beauty is awake," Eliot smirks. 

Penny and Quentin send him twin glares. Eliot holds his hands in the air like he's surrendering, then turns to switch off the stove and grab the pot he was cooking with.

"Later, nerds." He says, carrying the pot out with him.

"Bye?" Quentin says halfheartedly, and when he turns back towards Penny he finds a plate of food two inches away from his nose. There's basic breakfast food on it, eggs and bacon, nothing nearly as fancy and the shit Eliot tended to cook when he actually cooked for the group. And it looks nothing like whatever Eliot had had in his pot. Did Penny make this?

Penny just nods at him.

"It's not like, poisoned, is it?" Quentin half jokes. Penny just glares in response, so Quentin starts to eat. The room feels awkward for a stretch of time, until:

"Why did you sleep out here?" Penny asks suddenly.

"I figured you needed the space." Quentin replies, setting the plate down.

"That didn't stop you last time."

"Okay, so next time you're drunk and traumatized we can share the bed. We can make a tradition out of it."

"Yeah, I don't think we need to wait for that exact sequence of events." Penny says. Shit, when did he get so close? Quentin feels a hot ball of anticipation in his stomach, and - oh.

"Oh, you're flirting with me." Quentin squeaks out, then immediately covers his burning face with his hands because he feels so stupid.

Penny lets out a short bark of a laugh, surprised.

"I am, you dork." he confirms.

Quentin can feel the heat of Penny's body as he moves in closer, hovering inches away. He pulls Quentin's hands down, holds them in his own even once they're away from his face. And on the topic of faces, Penny has a look on his, like he's revealing something and not sure he wants to. Which, considering the whole accidental rejection that kickstarted their most recent escapade.....

Quentin lets himself be brave. He pulls his hands away from Penny's and rests one on the back of Penny's neck, pulling him in for a kiss. Penny jumps into it with passion, as if they had never stopped their last kiss. His hand sneaks up to grab a light fistful of Quentin's hair, which, holy shit. Q feels like he should be embarrassed by the noise he makes, but clearly Penny liked it.

They're so close to each other that they're practically melding into one and all Quentin can feel is heat and desire and dizziness like he's floating, punctuated by quick bursts and pleasurepain that is Penny tugging on his hair. He lets his hands roam, wanting to touch as much of Penny as he possible can, and - 

"Get a room!" Margo jeers, startling them apart. She makes her way to the fridge, muttering about 'being too hungover for this shit'.

Quentin is bright red, half from lust and half from embarassment. Penny looks - well, ruffled in a sexy way, but not so much ruffled by any sort of embarrassment whatsoever. Considering he's the kind of person to have sex in multiple public places, Quentin shouldn't be surprised that he's nonplussed. But Penny just grabs Quentin by the waist and blinks them upstairs, to Quentin's room.

They make out for a  _really_ long time.

* * *

 

Quentin wakes up to the midday sun, sweating buckets because of the furnace of a human draped over him. Q looks at the clock - it's still early afternoon, and neither of them have anywhere to be until later that day. He tries to wriggle out from underneath Penny but it doesn't work - Penny just mumbles and nuzzles in closer. Quentin is annoyed, but not all that much. It's hard to be irritated by how much of an affection octopus Penny is when Quentin is so touch starved himself.

They had only been dating for a few weeks now - well, 'dating' only in the technical term, unless you counted going to class and using the rest of their free time figuring out battle magic with the rest of their group punctuated with breaks of the two making out and/or cuddling when they were supposed to be sleeping as dates. But after that first night, Penny had spent every night in Quentin's bed, this time with no trauma and... minimal, for them, alcohol. They hadn't actually fucked or anything yet, Penny was incredibly respectful of Quentin's hangups, but just slept on the bed together. Emotional _and_ physical intimacy, from the same person at the same time, was something Quentin never really had, especially at this level. It was... really nice.

"Hey, nerd." Penny says sleepily, nudging his head against Quentin's throat. "Stop thinking so loud."

"Make me." Quentin replies cheekily.

Penny pulls himself up a little and goes in for a kiss - gentle, sweet, enough to shut Quentin's brain right up. Quentin grins into it, happy for the distraction.

Sure, threats of danger loomed in the future, but the present was going great. Quentin was happy, in love - nothing was going to take that from him, least of all the Beast.

Penny deepens the kiss a little to remove the thought of the Beast from Quentin's mind.

Whatever ended up happening, they'd worry about it later.

**Author's Note:**

> ok cool i hope you liked this i s2g im gonna keep working on this and post a new chapter sometime soon and not in like 50 years


End file.
